BOA Blog

The BOA team is thrilled to make an exciting journey to Chicago this Thursday, September 20. In celebration of the life and legacy of Lucille Clifton as well as the just-released The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010, The Poetry Foundation is presenting "Poetry off the Shelf: Lucille Clifton Tribute & Book Launch." The program, which is expected to last an hour, will feature poets Michael S. Glaser, Li-Young Lee, Elise Paschen, Kevin Young, and other special guests as they read their favorite Clifton poems; it will be followed by a reception. The details: Thursday, September 20, at 7:00 p.m. The...

Just last night, Santa Fe's KSFR 101.1 FM Public Radio show "Audio Saucepan" aired a reading of Lucille Clifton's poem "water sign woman." The poem is found in the new The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010. "Audio Saucepan" combines jazz, back country, and world sounds with interpretive readings of poetry and recorded words. The show airs each Sunday from 5 to 6 PM (Mountain Time) on KSFR 101.1FM Santa Fe Public Radio, and streams live on the internet via www.ksfr.org. water sign woman the woman who feels everything sits in her new house waiting for someone to come who knows how...

In an insightful Rain Taxi review, Adam McOmber's This New and Poisonous Air (BOA, 2011) is dubbed "a lyric and powerful testament to Gothic invention."  Reviewer Charles Dodd White likens McOmber's stories to those of Poe and Hawthorne, as they "explore inner and outer darkness, charting shadowlines of romance and obsession." McOmber's unique prose captures key elements of setting and historical time periods, allowing his stories to "occupy a space that comments on historic and cultural inequities without ever becoming tendentious." The review calls his writing "best" when the author uses historical settings and elements which aptly match his "baroque...

Dine & Rhyme is just a little more than a week away! If you haven't yet claimed your tickets to the hottest poetry event in Rochester this fall - not to worry - there's plenty of time left! On Sunday, September 23, you won't want to miss Dorianne Laux and Nin Andrews read from their own work and from the just-released The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010. The readings will take place at 3pm in the Auditorium of the Memorial Art Gallery, and the reception, dinner, and silent auction will begin at 5pm at Good Luck Restaurant. Tickets for...

Christopher Kennedy's Ennui Prophet finds much praise in the Fall 2012 issue of The Kenyon Review's KROnline. Reviewer Lauren Goodwin Slaughter calls the collection's prose poems "knee buckling," and finds them woven together by both introspection and humor in the effort to show that American individualism is in serious trouble. "America has been bedazzled to death." According to the review, Kennedy "exploits the threat hiding in seemingly benign settings and objects," revealing that humans have become "obliged to construct the self through meaningless, manufactured materials." Simple, everyday locations become vessels for further examination. In this fourth collection by Kennedy, "grocery stores,...